LICENSING
License required Unless exempt by law, child care centers, family day care residences, and group day care residences must be licensed. For family day care providers, the audience of this publication, that requirement appears at Minnesota Rules 9502.00335 Subp. 1. The stated purpose of such licensing is to ensure that minimum levels of care and service are given; and that the protection, proper care, health, safety, and development of the children are assured. Operating without a license, or without being one of the exempt categories of provider, is a misdemeanor. Minnesota Rules 9502.0325 Subp. 3 identifies the following day care situations as exempt from licensure: • day care provided by a relative to only related children; • day care provided to children from a single, unrelated family, for any length of time; • day care provided for a cumulative total of less than 30 days in any 12 month period. Minnesota Statutes § 119B.011 Subd. 16 refers to such providers as “legal unlicensed child care providers.” For a potential provider, the requirement of licensure has two important characteristics. • It operates as a barrier to entry by new providers. That barrier exists not only in terms of meeting the standards and requirements of licensing, but also in terms of potentially adverse consequences of delay in obtaining the license. That is, during the period of application and license pendency the market may change against the applicant in terms of potential clients or the entry of other new providers; or the applicant’s personal circumstances may change; or the availability and accessibility of outside funding may change. Both of these characteristics make it incumbent on a potential provider to
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